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 Albertorius wrote:

 MDSW wrote:
Commercial 3D printers have been around since the late 80's that I know of (a company was up the road from where I used to work way back and it blew my mind back then...) So it has taken technology about, what, 30+ years to make it personally available and affordable to the masses? So, I think the 15 year mark is fairly accurate for it to be much more widely recognized, available, and machines producing consistently great results.

Not technology. Licensing copyrights.

It has taken 30 years for licensing copyrights to expire on those technologies so that now any company can develop and buy their own printers using the aforementioned technologies without paying outrageous royalties for it.

Once those expired, it has taken two years to get where we are.

We're probably not going to see anything significant for at least a decade. I don't see SLA or DLP becoming the "printer in every home", but think it might be polyjet. We have one at work and the major advantages it has are it can print in multiple materials, so prints are made and with the main body material and the supports are a second material that can be washed away. Also, it works by depositing the material like an inkjet and curing each layer. No post curing is needed. That's the closest I've seen to pickup and use.

It looks like most the patents tied to it are owned by Stratasys and look to be about a decade old at this point. The machines they sell are not cheap. The unit we have was six figures and the cheapest unit they sell is 20k. Given what we have seen in the last five years after a number of patents expired in 2016 gives me hope this type of printing will go through a similar revolution.

 Laughing Man wrote:

 Ketara wrote:

 TheWaspinator wrote:
I'd say the biggest barrier to mainstream resin printing is the resin itself. As it stands right now, it's probably more toxic chemicals than most people want to deal with. We really need safer resins to be developed.

Anycubic soybean eco-resin is supposedly EU certified toy grade. I can personally certify it barely smells at all and doesn't damage skin from an accidental drip.

Is that just the cured resin, or liquid resin as well?

I'm referring to it in liquid form there. I started off with it, and despite everyone saying their resin stinks to high hell, I've been able to use it with very little problems in that regard. A window slightly open is sufficient ventilation; although I suspect that may also be the fact that the new Mono (unlike the Photon) doesn't blow air through it when printing.

I've not been bothered by the smell of the resin so much, but the IPA was really affecting me. I couldn't get enough ventilation easily, so switched to water washable stuff. I also read the safety sheet properly and the stuff I am using seems to irritate the eyes more than anything else so I've take to wearing some more enclosing safety goggles along with a mask,.rather than a respirator and just my glasses and that has helped I think.

Yeah, for me the most noxious smelling was my rinse bin that had Simple Green and the IPA - the wife would comment everytime I opened that up to rinse some prints.

I've not been bothered by the smell of the resin so much, but the IPA was really affecting me. I couldn't get enough ventilation easily, so switched to water washable stuff. I also read the safety sheet properly and the stuff I am using seems to irritate the eyes more than anything else so I've take to wearing some more enclosing safety goggles along with a mask,.rather than a respirator and just my glasses and that has helped I think.

See I Hardly notice either smells these days, whether that is a good or a bad thing I have no clue. It does help we have ours sitting right next to an extractor fan (though we never turn it on, the wind outside helps pull air out there).
Agree though that, though resin printers are getting cheaper and cheaper, its still going to be more work than most people want to do.

And again, I know not everyone plays in tournaments or at stores but as long as store managers/TO's require people to use GW models in their armies for events printing a 2k army at home with not one mini belonging to GW (or any other wargaming company for that matter) is going to limit how much 3d printing happens.

IF I get a 3d printer in the future it will be to print terrain pieces. While there are some truly great looking minis that can be printed now the vast majority are nowhere near GW quality or FW quality. I'm not counting Creature Caster as that isn't one person in their basement printing those to sell, that's a whole team and I'm pretty sure if you tried right now today to bring an all CC or Raging Heroes army to a GW sanctioned event you probably wouldn't get in.

The answer to this really depends on pricing.

If I can buy a hard plastic miniature with lots of options for around £1 or less, I have no desire to print that mini for 50p of resin + whatever the file cost + the time/inconvenience cost involved.

At the moment, I don't play GW games or use their minis and purchase minis that are around £1 each from mantic, northstar, etc.

So, for me personally, resin printer for minis is a nope, but for someone who is looking at £10.50 for one of the new space marines? No contest.

Hah... getting a printer for terrain is the thin end of the wedge

It's like the entry level drug. "I'll just print a few bits and pieces, oh wait now I have just printed myself a new house in tiny 200x200x150mm chunks..."

There is very few tournamnets that would allow non-GW minis at their table, for very good reason. They don't want to lose those sweet sweet sponser bucks. That's why GW partnered with Reece of FLG and BoLS, so they could force their press to only have GW minis. Unless GW allows non-GW minis at events and #D printers start making FW quality resin prints, you won't see a major shift. You are much more likely to see a shift from molding/injected minis. Why buy a 200 dollar plane when you can buy it for a quarter the cost from Alexei on the interwebs.

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
There is very few tournamnets that would allow non-GW minis at their table, for very good reason. They don't want to lose those sweet sweet sponser bucks. That's why GW partnered with Reece of FLG and BoLS, so they could force their press to only have GW minis. Unless GW allows non-GW minis at events and #D printers start making FW quality resin prints, you won't see a major shift. You are much more likely to see a shift from molding/injected minis. Why buy a 200 dollar plane when you can buy it for a quarter the cost from Alexei on the interwebs.

Could you elaborate on the last bit of this what do you mean by buying what on Alexei? What's Alexei do they make low-cost injection molding machines?

My thing is the apparent toxicity of the resin and potential fail of the print that can take upwards of hours to make one model.

I think if I was to print off say a complete "not a landraider but looks like a landraider" tank and 1 hour into it something goes wrong and it fails and I have a mess to clean up I'd be putting that printer on ebay and recouping my loss. I don't have patience enough to be constantly messing with a printer.

I know it depends on printer and user competence but still. Right now it's just not a investment I'm willing to make. The cost of a printer would buy a good few more models for my existing armies or let me start a new one.

If I could sculpt worth a gak (and I admit I can't) I'd try to sculpt original models and make money but for me personally I have no desire to make my hobby into a business and I just can't see me using it enough to make it worth while.

The few terrain pieces I would want I'll just buy. The models I want to buy I'll just buy. If there ever comes a time I can't afford GW products I'll quit the hobby. I quit MtG in the early 2000's because in my area it became a race to see who could spend the most on a deck; I gave up paintball in the early 2000's as well as that got too expensive to actively participate in.

This is why I like Fly fishing.

You can be by yourself, and it's pretty cheap to get into, and if you want, you can make your own flies.

Also, you can do it completely naked! Can't do that in 40k can you!

Slaneesh can be all sex and violence, but if I try to get all horny during the game, it's SIR YOU HAVE TO LEAVE THE STORE.

Home printing is absolutely not for everyone - just like car maintenance... Sure, you might be able to change your own oil for the cheap, but sometimes you find it easier to take it to Jiffy Lube and others would never think of doing it themselves, or spending extra money to take it somewhere else. I find in many cases my time is just more valuable, so you pick and choose your battles.

The real appeal of 3d printing for me is the ability to print complete nonsense that will never be commercially available.

 MDSW wrote:
Home printing is absolutely not for everyone - just like car maintenance... Sure, you might be able to change your own oil for the cheap, but sometimes you find it easier to take it to Jiffy Lube and others would never think of doing it themselves, or spending extra money to take it somewhere else. I find in many cases my time is just more valuable, so you pick and choose your battles.

Where I live it would actually cost more for me to do an oil change myself.

So I'm saving money and saving time.

I have a Mono X, so no issues printing vehicles in one piece, or printing entire squads on one build plate. After the initial learning curve, printing failures occur once in a blue moon, so for me, are a non-issue.

For me, that often makes the level of effort for printing something easier than buying a kit if I have access to a file for it. Printing a one-piece tank requires far less effort than cutting out all the plastic parts, cleaning mold lines, covering inevitable gaps, and actual assembly.

That not might be everyone's experience, and that's OK.

I'm currently working on a project, and make a case-by-case decision on each model - do I buy and assemble a model for this, or just print one? The project is about 50/50 so far - depending on each unique model's circumstances leading to a decision on print it or not.

TheWaspinator hit the nail on the head though - "silly", "fun", "cool" projects that would never be feasible for manufacturing lines are where printing really shines. Being able to make breakdancing models, sci-fi troopers riding dragons, or those Raygun Raptors leads to more creativity among artists, and more interesting, unique options for folks to put on their armies on the tabletop.

Yeah, I'm not expecting GW to make Raygun Raptors, Pony Marines, or Sax Marines any time soon.

I mean, Hats of to the Saxmarine!

Down here in NZ there are no GW-sponsored events. All events have to find their own prize supports, usually coming from small hobby stores in the region or from Mighty Ape (our version of Amazon, but very small in comparison).

because of this TO's are far more likely to say if it looks the part then it is fine. We had an event late last year where 2 3D printed giants were used by different people as allied Mega Gargants in AOS.

 TheWaspinator wrote:
Yeah, I'm not expecting GW to make Raygun Raptors, Pony Marines, or Sax Marines any time soon.

Hmmm I do have a Land Raider Redeemer I'm not using.

OMG - the Saxmarine is the absolute coolest mini ever!! Exalt for that!!

Credit for the sax marine: https://www.reddit.com/r/PrintedWarhammer/comments/m7us1u/its_alive_sax_marine_test_print_mk2_first/

Here's another brilliant idea that would never happen without printing:

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4696296

Ha! Thomas the Tie Fighter, assumably...

Yep. And how about the dwarf-alorian?

 TheWaspinator wrote:
Yeah, I'm not expecting GW to make Raygun Raptors, Pony Marines, or Sax Marines any time soon.

Time for a sax-off! https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3790068

You can also manage to do all those things the companies can't be assed to do.

Like in the case of Dream Pod 9, 28mm scale Gears:



I can only wonder how much money have they left on the table.